Choke valves are critical components in oil and gas production systems because of their relatively short life time. Moreover, the prediction of in-service performance and reliability is critical due to accessibility, e.g., subsea and expensive production downtime for service.
Choke valves may be subjected to high velocity (>200 m/s) flows which can be mixed sand/oil/gas/water of variable pH and can also feature ‘sour’ conditions including H2S.
Tungsten carbide together with cobalt metal binder currently dominates the materials used for choke valves because of its unique combination of hardness, strength and wear resistant properties. However, under certain circumstances of oil and gas flow control there are detrimental properties of the hardmetal binder material mainly due to its low corrosion resistance to acidic media.